Darkness Descending
by Sword of the Shadow
Summary: DISCONTINUED. Severitus Challenge. Standard for the challenge.
1. Default Chapter

Darkness Descending

Chapter 1

He stared longingly at the picture on his scarred and pitted wood desk, watching as the young woman twirled about happily. Snow drifted lightly through the air, settling on the bridge of her flushed nose before falling off again as she smiled and nodded to someone just out of the picture.

Her dark red hair shone and her face glowed underneath the leather cap she wore. It made her ears stick out just the slightest bit, making the tips even redder than the cold normally would. Her green eyes sparkled merrily.

He closed his eyes, sighing deeply. He had lost her a long time ago, if she had ever truly been his. Lost her to that insufferable git of a man, and finally lost her completely to Voldemort.

He tried to reconcile the past with himself, reminding himself that he never would have done what he needed to had it not been for the impetus of her leaving. The words sounded hollow to his own ears, especially when he was reminded of the other, less pleasant consequences of her actions.

The woman in the picture grinned, her pretty crimson lips stretching apart to show pearly white teeth. Her clothes had a decidedly Muggle taste to them, something that surprisingly did not seem to bother the man gazing at her nostalgically. Her coat was a deep tan and well-fit to her body, emphasizing all the correct places. Her legs were clad in a pair of blue jeans, almost bleached from so much use.

They were her favourite pair, he remembered with a smile. She wore them almost every other day. They were like her, soft and warm and supple, but with an underlying durability and hidden strength.

Bits of scarf flew around her as the wind picked up, making a tangled mess of her hair. She did not seem to mind, laughing merrily and tying the green knitted scarf firmly around her neck once more. They had a matching pair, the colour chosen to represent her eyes and his House.

The picture was one of the few he had of her. He could barely remember the months after she had left him, telling him that she was not safe with him. Most of his memories consisted of staring morosely at increasing numbers of empty fire whiskey flasks and snippets of torture sessions where the Muggles and Mudbloods screamed for mercy and he found that he had none left to give them. She had stolen his heart away and, when it was returned, he found the feelings emitting from the pulsing organ so painful that he buried them deep inside himself, trying to forget that they had ever existed in the first place.

He turned his attention away from the moving picture, trying instead to focus on grading the essays. The class would be returning tomorrow and he needed to finish marking the many errors with rough scratches of his eagle feather quill. On most of them there was more red ink in his barely legible angry scrawl then there was of the students' work.

He set aside Granger's five-foot long parchment, disappointed as always that there were no mistakes. Of course, he still wrote in a few biting comments for the sake of it, but they were a half-hearted attempt at best. In her eagerness to learn, even the dreaded subject of Potions, she was so much like the woman in the picture that he found it difficult to be too scathing with her.

He reached for the next, scowling fiercely at the name hastily scribbled at the top corner of the parchment. As far as he was concerned, the boy should not even be in his N.E.W.T.s class. He had barely achieved an O in his O.W.L., something which irritated him to no end. How in the world had Potter managed to attain such a high score when he had purposefully assured that the boy would not learn anything in his class?

"Probably Dumbledore's meddling," he growled. He knew, of course, that the boy wanted to be an Auror and that in order to do that he would need the advanced Potions class. Severus, however, had other ideas. He did not want to put up with the boy for any longer than completely necessary; he stirred up far too many painful memories of...

He shoved the thought aside with a glance at the woman in the picture. He returned his attention to the essay, reading it with interest. The assignment had been to write a three-foot long parchment on the interactions between two ingredients in the mild truth serum they had brewed earlier that week. Surprisingly, Potter had not chosen the two easiest ingredients, as most of the other students had done.

_Trying to impress me, is he?_ he thought with a sneer. He would have thought even the idiotic Potter would have realised that he would just flounder even more than normal if he did that.

But as he read further into the body of the essay, he found himself rather impressed despite his earlier skepticism. The boy actually knew what he was talking about. Furthermore, it did not appear to have been copied from a book or Granger.

Perhaps there was some hope for Potter after all. Snape snorted at himself and scribbled a comment on the top. As ifa_ Potter _would ever be any good at Potions.

Harry glared all the way down to the dungeons, causing several first years to jump out of his path like scared rabbits. He ignored them, instead focusing on how painful Potions was bound to be. Despite the fact that he would have been severely disappointed if he would not have been able to attend the high-level class and subsequently become an Auror, he had not wanted to put up with Snape of all people.

Hermione tailed along behind him, rambling on about her Arithmancy class. Harry had no interest in the stuff (what good would numbers do him? He had a Dark Lord to kill), and ignored her.

Harry took a seat as far back as possible, per usual, and Hermioine as far forward as possible, per usual. Aside from a handful of eager Ravenclaws, they were the first ones there.

The bell rang shortly after the rest of the class filed into the room. Snape, with his usual flair for dramatics, entered in a billow of robes, brandishing a stack of parchment. Harry bit back a groan with an air of long practice; despite all the time he spent on his Potions homework (in previous years, more than the rest of his classes put together), he had never received more than a half-way decent grade.

"These essays," Snape growled, focusing on each member of the small class in turn, "were simply horrendous. Few of you properly understood the proper interactions between your chosen ingredients, even though you chose the simplest ones. I should burn them, the whole lot."

Still muttering under his breath, Snape passed out the essays to each person, sneering in satisfaction each time a pair of black-clad shoulders slumped with a heavy sigh. Harry's was one of the last ones handed back, but he did not even bother to look at the grade. It would not do to get mad and ruin whatever potion they were instructed to make today. He could look at it after class.

So he set up his ingredients, following the instructions on the board precisely, and boiled his potion. When it was bottled and properly labeled and stored, he finally flipped his parchment over.

Scrawled across the top was a "see me". Harry gulped, and shuddered as the bell rang.


	2. Capitulo Dos

Sorry the update took so long. Life is crazy. Anyway, thanks for all the lovely reviews. Unfortunately, due to time and a restricted internet access time, I can't respond to them all personally in the chapter. If you would like a response, please leave your e-mail address in your review and I'll get back to you.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Snape looked up at him over the jars of... well, whatever they were, eyes narrowing in disgust. Harry gulped in fear (even after over five years in the class, he was still unused to that piercing glare). "About my essay," he added, holding the parchment in front of him like a peace offering.

"I know quite well why you're here, Potter," Snape growled. "Your essay was... most surprising. Tell me, where did you get your information from?"

"The library, of course. I researched and worked really hard on it. I'm sorry if it's not up to your standards." Of course, nothing Harry ever did was up to Snape's standards.

"This is undoubtedly the best essay you have ever written."

"Sorry?"

"You heard what I said, Potter. Don't push it."

Harry ran a hand through his hair and pushed his glasses up on his nose. "I didn't cheat, if that's what you're insinuating."

"Such large words from such a puny brain, Potter."

"I didn't cheat, professor," Harry reiterated, growing frustrated. "I wrote the essay all by myself, without Hermione or help from everybody else. If you don't believe me," Harry shrugged, "well, my grade can't be much worse."

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm, Potter. I'm not insinuating anything of the sort. I just want to know why you chose the ingredients you did."

"Because they made the most sense, professor. The manticore scales interacted with the chiamera hairs without violence because of the close kinship of the two magical creatures. Under normal circumstances, both are extremely volatile, but when mixed together, they each nullify the effects of the other-"

"I read your paper, Potter. But why did you choose them?"

"I already told you! Those were the two ingredients that made the most sense to me!"

Snape rose to his feet, planting his hands on each side of his desk. "You weren't trying to impress me, were you, Potter? Thought that throwing out a decent paper for once would raise my opinion of you? Thought that your celebrity status would finally kick in, Potter."

"I wrote the paper because that was the assignment!" Harry tried to defend himself, also rising to his feet in fury. "I don't care about impressing you at all! It's not like anything I do would change your opinion of me!"

"Don't smart off, Potter!"

"Don't yell at me, Snape!" His chest heaved with anger. "I did what you told me to do, and you're just mad because I did a half decent job of it for once."

"Shut up!" Snape roared, slamming his hand down onto the hard surface of the desk. Parchment scattered, jars rolled off and shattered on the flagstone floor. A picture flew through the air, slamming into the wall.

The glass broke, showering the floor in small fragments.

Harry's attention snapped immediately after Snape's temper and he turned around to see what Snape considered important enough to keep a picture of.

A flash of red hair was the first thing he saw, followed by a glimpse of white teeth and green eyes.

"That's... that's my mum."

Snape stared at the boy for a second in awe. "What are you talking about, boy?" he brought himself to say, stomach rumbling in distinct fear.

"That picture. That's my mum." Harry turned confused eyes on his potions professor, begging for an explanation.

"That's impossible," Snape muttered, breathing deeply. "Impossible."

"I'm telling you that's my mum!" Harry's face flushed to a dark red that would make a Weasley proud. "What are you doing with a picture of my mum?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Why would I have a picture of your precious father's wife? The entire idea is completely... ridiculous."

"That's my mum. My mum. What is a greasy git like you doing defiling her like that?" Harry drew his wand, clutching it tightly in his fist, unsure of whether or not he actually intended to use it.

"One hundred points from Gryffindor," Snape hissed acidicly. Harry opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off by a sharp glare. "And detention with Mr. Filch tomorrow night. Dismissed."

Harry, with one last defiant glare, reached down to snatch the picture from amidst the broken glass, making sure Snape saw him. He promptly stalked out of the room, shoulders shaking in fury.

As soon as the door slammed shut behind him, Snape dropped his head onto his desk. He wondered if there were still a few bottles of fire whiskey around in his office somewhere. He couldn't remember ever throwing them away.

He could really use a pint.

Or six.


End file.
